Table of Contents

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Eurobarometer 60.3: Time Allocation for Job, Learning, Family, and Other Activities, Retirement Preferences, and Product Safety Instructions for 'Do-It-Yourself' Products and Toys and Products for Children, November 2003-January 2004 (ICPSR 3993)

Principal Investigator(s):
Papacostas, Antonis, European Commission

Summary:

This round of Eurobarometer surveys sought public opinion
on issues of time usage and product safety instructions. Respondents
were asked about their current employment status and occupation,
matters pertaining to work arrangements and leave options such as
teleworking, work schedule flexibility, and taking sabbaticals, as
well as activities that have an impact on their free time. Respondents
were asked about their satisfaction with respect to various aspects of
life including their job, health, and financial situation. Respondents
were queried on the number of hours they worked per week, whether or
not they intended to reduce their working hours and for how long, and
what they would do with their extra free time. Respondents were also
asked for their opinions about stress levels at work, compensation,
working conditions, and job security. They were also asked at what age
they would like to retire and at what age they expected to retire,
whether they would consider postponing retirement for any reason, and
what they would do with their extra time upon retiring. Other
questions were asked about professional training completed by the
respondents in the previous 12 months, whether they took time off of
work to complete the training, who should be responsible for paying
for such training and about their attitudes towards lifelong
learning. Respondents were asked how many children under the age of 14
were living in their household and if the children's grandparents ever
looked after them and with what frequency. In addition, respondents
with grandchildren were asked if they ever looked after their
grandchildren and whether or not they did so on a regular basis.
Respondents also were asked a series of questions regarding product
safety information with respect to 'Do-it-yourself' (DIY) products.
Respondents were shown different logos that had appeared on DIY
products and were asked if they were familiar with the various logos
and if they knew what the logos said about the product. Respondents
were asked if they took safety logos or other safety information into
account when purchasing DIY products, whether or not they read
instructions accompanying DIY products, whether they kept instructions
for future use, where they thought the best location for instructions
would be, whether they preferred safety instructions to be conveyed by
logos or text, and whether or not safety information for DIY products
was generally useful. Similarly, they were asked about product safety
information regarding toys and other products for children.
Respondents were also asked whether they took safety information into
account when buying toys or children's products, whether they read
safety instructions, and whether they kept safety instructions for
future reference. Further, they were asked if they had seen certain
logos on toys or other products for children and whether they knew
what the logos said about the products. Respondents' opinions were
sought regarding the most effective placement of safety instructions,
whether they preferred the risks of using a toy or children's product
to be indicated by logos or symbols or by text, and the usefulness of
warnings appearing in text form. Finally, respondents were asked to
make judgments on the overall usefulness of safety information for
toys and children's products. Demographic and other background
information collected includes respondent age, gender, marital status,
nationality, left-right political self-placement, age at completion of
education, occupation, household income group, type and size of
locality, and region of residence.

This round of Eurobarometer surveys sought public opinion
on issues of time usage and product safety instructions. Respondents
were asked about their current employment status and occupation,
matters pertaining to work arrangements and leave options such as
teleworking, work schedule flexibility, and taking sabbaticals, as
well as activities that have an impact on their free time. Respondents
were asked about their satisfaction with respect to various aspects of
life including their job, health, and financial situation. Respondents
were queried on the number of hours they worked per week, whether or
not they intended to reduce their working hours and for how long, and
what they would do with their extra free time. Respondents were also
asked for their opinions about stress levels at work, compensation,
working conditions, and job security. They were also asked at what age
they would like to retire and at what age they expected to retire,
whether they would consider postponing retirement for any reason, and
what they would do with their extra time upon retiring. Other
questions were asked about professional training completed by the
respondents in the previous 12 months, whether they took time off of
work to complete the training, who should be responsible for paying
for such training and about their attitudes towards lifelong
learning. Respondents were asked how many children under the age of 14
were living in their household and if the children's grandparents ever
looked after them and with what frequency. In addition, respondents
with grandchildren were asked if they ever looked after their
grandchildren and whether or not they did so on a regular basis.
Respondents also were asked a series of questions regarding product
safety information with respect to 'Do-it-yourself' (DIY) products.
Respondents were shown different logos that had appeared on DIY
products and were asked if they were familiar with the various logos
and if they knew what the logos said about the product. Respondents
were asked if they took safety logos or other safety information into
account when purchasing DIY products, whether or not they read
instructions accompanying DIY products, whether they kept instructions
for future use, where they thought the best location for instructions
would be, whether they preferred safety instructions to be conveyed by
logos or text, and whether or not safety information for DIY products
was generally useful. Similarly, they were asked about product safety
information regarding toys and other products for children.
Respondents were also asked whether they took safety information into
account when buying toys or children's products, whether they read
safety instructions, and whether they kept safety instructions for
future reference. Further, they were asked if they had seen certain
logos on toys or other products for children and whether they knew
what the logos said about the products. Respondents' opinions were
sought regarding the most effective placement of safety instructions,
whether they preferred the risks of using a toy or children's product
to be indicated by logos or symbols or by text, and the usefulness of
warnings appearing in text form. Finally, respondents were asked to
make judgments on the overall usefulness of safety information for
toys and children's products. Demographic and other background
information collected includes respondent age, gender, marital status,
nationality, left-right political self-placement, age at completion of
education, occupation, household income group, type and size of
locality, and region of residence.

Universe:
Citizens of the European Union (EU) aged 15 and over
residing in the 15 EU member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

The original data collection was carried out by the European Opinion Research Group - EEIG on request of the European Commission.

The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.

The documentation and/or setup files may contain references to Norway, but Norway was not a participant in this wave of Eurobarometer surveys. This collection contains no data for Norway.

Seventeen non-unique original Respondent ID numbers (V410 = original Country + original Respondent_ID) have been identified; one being a duplicate with a completely identical respondent record. For further information please see the "Processing Notes" section of the ICPSR codebook.

Methodology

Sample:
Multistage national probability samples were used

Weight:
Please review the "Weighting Information" section of the ICPSR codebook for this Eurobarometer study.

Mode of Data Collection:
face-to-face interview

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 2006-09-21

Version History:

2010-06-15 The data have been further processed by GESIS, and the SPSS, SAS, and Stata setup files, Stata system file, and codebook have been updated. Also, the SPSS portable file has been replaced with an SPSS system file, the SAS transport (XPORT) file has been replaced with a SAS transport (CPORT) file, and a tab-delimited ASCII data file and data collection instrument have been added.